ITASA at UIUC
I was a programming chair for the 2009 ITASA conference, working to bring Taiwanese Americans to our school to speak. I loved all of the artists we brought and learned so much from them. I believe what keeps me going as an Asian American in the arts is meeting and learning from passionate artists like those who came to the conference. These people were the ones doing it! They’re the ones that jumped right in and started doing the things I dream of doing soon. Their passion and bravery inspire and excite me for what will come in the next few years. If you get the chance, you must check out Alice Tong (singer/songwriter), Jimmy Tsai (producer/actor), and Jeff Chang (hiphop historian/journalist). These people somehow represent to me what it means to be an Asian American artist. It is about the arts first (not about some separate Asian American genre), but still it is important to realize that our identities as Asian Americans must be claimed and inhabited for us to get anywhere in the American gaze.
